Scott's Column Cable Modems Suck... Get One ASAP, and I get a Force
Feedback Joystick

January 1, 2000
By Scott Lewis

My Cable Yo-Yo (eh... I mean modem) has been having upload and download
fits. The rest of the month has been slow with the exception of getting
two new game controllers, one with force feedback.

Cable Yo-Yo

My cable modem went out on Thanksgiving. It took until the following
Tuesday before I could get my cable company out to my house. When they
arrived, it was in force. Three technicians showed up at my house.

They put meters all over the place to eliminate my house as part of the
problem. They left and would be working on the node. Alas, my service kept
coming and going. Mostly upload was out of the question. I have probably
had 3 or 4 good days of uploading in the last month.

Download performance has been better than uploading, but it was still
intermittent. To date (Jan 3, 00), technicians have been to my house over
half a dozen times. One cable (TV, not ISP) technician found the
connectors at my house were in "less than optimal" condition. He
replaced a lot of them. He also determined that the wiring in the walls
was "sub-standard."

That required another visit. They sent another guy out to replace the
wall drop to my master bedroom, and the line to my son’s room. Alas,
this did nothing to help the situation.

Another technician showed up just as the "wall drop" guy was
about to leave. The "wall drop" guy was a contractor and could
only do the items on his work order. I called the technician responsible
for the entire job. He sent out a third guy. So technician #2 and #3 ran
new wire to my house from the "telephone" pole.

Now I have all new wiring from the pole to my house and all my TVs.
Still no help. But I have the best Television picture I have ever had in
my house. They ran a cable directly from the telephone pole to technician
#3’s laptop in his truck. He got the same results I have been having, no
upload capability and slower than it should be download speed.

Now they say they need to get a cable TV technician (the ISP guys
don’t handle the regular wiring) to start checking (again) all the
connections between my telephone pole and the node. It works at the node.
In fact, one of the technicians lives in my node and he isn’t having any
trouble.

When I know more so will you. Don’t let my woes of cable modem
service detract you from getting one. When it is working (and it has been
completely reliable for my friend since we set him up) the performance is
great. Download speed from my ISP is normally right around 200KBps
(1.6Mbps) and upload speeds are typically around 30-40KBps (240-320Kbps).
The maximum upload speed is set at 384Kbps (~48KBps). This is much better
than my Telco’s 128Kbps (16KBps) maximum upstream limit for their ADSL
service which I can’t even get.

Joystick & Gamepad

We got my son Disney’s Toy Story 2 Action Game for his birthday. In
this game you control Buzz Lightyear to duplicate his feat of rescuing
Woody from the evil toy baron, Al. Playing the game on the keyboard is a
little difficult. We decided to get a gamepad, mentioned through out the
instruction booklet.

We got Microsoft’s Sidewinder Game Pad Pro. It has a really nice
feel, and its directional pointer is pressure sensitive. It is also the
first USB device I have gotten.

But we came upon a problem. When I first hooked it up it didn’t work
in TS2. The Control Panel applet used to setup/configure peripherals
showed it worked perfectly. Still, TS2 would not recognize it. Just by
accident my son pushed on my Joystick and saw that the game was responding
to it.

I went back to the control Panel applet. Sure enough, the Joystick was
listed first. I removed the Joystick. Now TS2 worked perfectly with the
game pad. The game pad does make a big difference in game play for this
third person action game.

But the problem continued. I re-installed my Joystick, Logitech Wingman
Extreme. But when I ran Need For Speed High Stakes it would not recognize
the Joystick. I had to remove the game pad from Control Panel to get the
joystick to work. It seems that even though the Control Panel applet can
see, and work, with both connected and installed my games don’t.

I setup the game pad for TS2 then added the joystick. Back in NFS:HS I
went into its controllers section and had to manually select each item and
point it to the appropriate item for "Joystick 2." This solved
the problem of which to leave in the first position.

I got a Logitech Force Feedback Joystick for Christmas. My full opinion
is still out. It installed itself but NFSHS would not recognize there was
a Force Feedback Joystick available. To be honest, I can’t remember what
exactly worked. I uninstalled NFS:HS, and re-installed it. That didn’t
work. I checked Logitech’s web site, but all I could find was a
reference that NFS:HS is recommended with their Force Feedback Steering
Wheel. There was a driver update, but my poor connection kept failing
trying to download it.

Here’s were I don’t remember exactly what fixed it. I removed both
game controllers from Control Panel. I installed the Joystick just through
the Control Panel. All I know is NFSHS started recognizing it. Not
intuitive, but at least it is working.

As far as game play... so far I am not impressed. I installed European
Air War that came with the stick. I was not impressed with the game, but
it did let me feel the kick of the machine guns which I liked a lot. The
plane’s controls didn’t seem to have much feel though. I got bored
with the game before I could look into checking any of its settings. I did
notice that force feedback was not on by default in the game. I thought
that was unusual.

Need For Speed is a disappointment so far. I can’t even play at a
competitive level yet. I am losing badly. I don’t know fully why. What I
have determined so far is that the default setting in NFS are not the best
for game play. I thought I would really lke the rumble of the joystick as
I went "off road." Alas, in the default setting NFS is a major
problem when going off road. The stick kicks so much it is like crashing
into a wall, which you soon end up doing as you lose control of your
vehicle.

This is a big problem when you need to cut across a median to run the
fastest time. It is not possible. I adjusted NFS’s settings to turn down
the "volume" of force feedback. I also lowered the level for
"off road" and increased the setting for collisions.
Unfortunately the collision setting doesn’t help much. I have not felt
anything when being rear-ended by another car, and crashing into walls is
equally unfulfilling. I blame this on NFS. Steering "feel" is
decent when you have traction. However, the slightest loss in front wheel
traction just lets the stick go limp. There is no feel for what is
actually going on to help recover from a skid.

Overall I preferred playing NFS with my old joystick (Logitech Wingman
Extreme... still highly recommended). But I have not giving the stick
enough time to say whether or not it is recommended. Just be aware that
installation may be tricky. When I start winning in NFS again, I will give
my recommendation. I don’t remember if Wing Commander 4 supported force
feedback. I don’t think so. But if it did, I will have to reload that
and play it again.

Until then I am looking for a title that will really make the force
feedback shine. Any suggestions?

Conclusion

Well if my cable modem is "up" long enough, this column will
make it out. Otherwise expect it to be delayed. Then again Y2K will end
the world as we know it, so what difference does it make.